Forty Six
The baby blue sky lapped at his ankles. It was cool and amazingly quiet. The horizon was invisible — there was no distinction between the liquid sky stretching out before him and the vast sea above. The sand worked its way between his toes.
A lone seagull sailed past, perfectly silent as it cruised ahead of the mist. Above the sky, beneath the sea. But... there were no seagulls on the Mekong.
Logan turned in the sandy shallows to see a long stretch of beach with dunes covered in grasses and trees beyond. A single figure stood several paces down the shore, wading to her waist in the misty waters.
Logan approached her, the sound of the water breaking around his legs the only sound there was. He found her from behind, noticing she was wearing exactly what she had been the last time he had seen her.
Somehow, it didn’t seem off that this woman was wearing a business suit in the water. Ripples moved around her jacket, soaking it half way to the armpits. Her sleeves were also soaked through, as she gently drew her hands across the glass-like surface of the water.
As Logan approached, the water got deeper. He could feel the silk hanging heavily from him now, his khakis resisting his every step. But soon he was behind her, his hand reaching out for her.
Before he could touch her, she turned, his eyes and face everything that made him die inside. Her look: The most deadly thing in his universe. Time slowed to a crawl as her hand lifted from the water in a spray of frosted crystal droplets and struck the side of his face.
“Rachel,” he pleaded as his head twisted from the blow, his eyes following the paths of the water droplets. Each one shifted and molded, from a perfect sphere to something else. Time resumed and he felt himself stumbling backwards, the water cushioning his movements.
Rachel stood perfectly still with the look that could drown worlds. “Husband,” she hissed.
He held his hand to where she struck him and lifted his eyes from the water that lapped about her waist. Before his eyes could meet hers, however, the world came apart.
6 May, 2002, Los Angeles
Loki awoke with a shudder and a moan of physical agony. With his last ounce of strength, during the witch’s attack, he had teleported himself back to his place of security. His apartment. Barely in time.
As his eyes adjusted to the dim red light, he felt his whole body burned and scarred. The witch had turned his own power against him and he now felt what he had intended to inflict. Maximum pain, maximum energy drainage. He had nothing left.
He rolled over and found that every surface of his body was red and swollen, as if he had been dumped in a fire. Every muscle movement was agony, every breath hell. If he hadn’t been so depleted, he might have been able to heal the wounds, dim the burn, but every breath took all the mortal strength he had.
Somehow, between gasps of pain, he made his way towards the source of the red light. Wilson sat on his old desk, glowing immutably, impassively, as its master crawled towards it.
After long, strained, unbearably painful minutes, Loki was propped up against the edge of his desk, his pink flesh bloodied by the light. Through the cracks of vision penetrating his swollen eyes, he could just make out the scene of his battle with the witch, raging over and over again on the sphere’s glassy surface. Someone had been using Wilson. Someone had been here.
“I’ll make you a deal,” the voice said from somewhere behind him. “One last deal, then it’ll all be done.”
Loki closed his swollen eyes. He had been caught now at his most vulnerable. He was more vulnerable now than he had been lying in the grass with his soul torn fresh from his being. If Tory chose to kill him now, there would be nothing to stop him. So the Puppeteers decided to save you after all, he wanted to say, but his voice was far from audible.
“One last deal,” Tory repeated gently, stepping closer in the dim light, his stab wound now gone, his cane restored. “And it will all be done.” Loki couldn’t even turn his head. Simply not moving was his affirmation. Tory turned away from the gruesome sight of the scorched conjurer. “There’s something you need to do.”
“Cronus, father of time,” Loki’s eyes were closed, a significant feat now that the swelling had lessened, thanks to Tory’s ministrations. “As you were there at time’s beginning, so you are there at its final count. Give me now the strength required to complete this task laid before me. Allow me to reshape, redesign and rewrite that which had been shaped, designed and written.” The conjurer’s hands were pressed so solidly against the sphere that all feeling had gone from them. The recitation had to be repeated three times now, the details worked out earlier by the demon from the barbershop quartet.
“This I ask and to you I pray: Let all remembrance pass away. Unwind the lines of fate you’ve spun; let a single wrong be now undone.” Through the numbness of his burned fingers, he could feel the surface of the sphere give way. “Shield only my thoughts from my ministrations, let all others be swayed by time’s alterations. Let my hands pass through time and remove just one soul, let them touch your design and your plan now control. Let tomorrow be different when I change today, this I ask and to you I pray.”
4 May, 2002, Sunnydale
Warren strode angrily down the street. There was no one around to question his odd black clothing. There was no one to question his intention. If the other two were here, they would make some comparison to Lex Luthor, but they were in jail — right where incompetent criminals belonged. Only true genius got away with crime: took what he wanted without contestation.
There was much that Warren wanted. He wanted invincibility. He wanted immortality. He wanted to be loved and respected for his genius. He wanted what the conjurer on the phone had promised. He wanted the slayer dead.
The gun felt odd in his hand. So crude. So simple. That’s why it was so perfect. There were no rituals or rules or loopholes with a gun. No orbs to smash. Mankind had found the simplest and most direct way of killing with deadly certainty. It could scarcely be improved upon.
He rounded the corner of the house and stopped. He could hear voices. One of them was her. His hand gripped the gun firmly. Then his eyes widened.
Dropping the gun and raising both hands to his throat, he made a strangled cry of confusion. His hands pulled futilely at the fingers which circled his neck. Two hands had come out of thin air and taken hold of him, squeezing and twisting.
He tried to swallow but could do that no more than he could draw breath. His face was hot as his veins were constricted. His eyes hurt and his lungs burned. He gave a choking gasp as the hands loosened for an instant to get a better grip.
Then the grip tightened again, viciously and lethally. Warren shook involuntarily as anoxia set in, his body using up the last of the precious oxygen in his blood. His eyes rolled back and his muscles tensed. Then it was done.
For a moment afterwards, the pair of hands held the lifeless body upright by the throat, to make sure the task was complete. Then they pulled away, vanishing into thin air, letting the body crumple into a heap on the grass.
And so it was changed.
“They’re hugging!” Tara said excitedly, peering out the window of Willow’s bedroom to look down at Xander and Buffy in the yard.
Willow smiled seductively from behind her. “Mmm, I like that idea.” Her hands slid around Tara’s waist and pulled her into an embrace. “Do you think they’re doing this?” Her lips found the other girl’s. There was a long moment as their tongues danced, simple tenderness in the touch.
Tara pulled back. “I hope not,” she breathed, “that would make things... more complicated.”
Willow laughed. “I guess you’re right. Things are just about as complicated as I can handle.” She took Tara by the hand and they strode away from the window. “I’m glad some things are simplified now,” she smiled knowingly, her eyes locking gratefully with Tara’s. “There’s certainly something to be said for simplicity.”
“Who needs words?” Tara sighed and took the other in her arms again. The kiss was deeper this time, and it didn’t stop there. The bed bounced slightly as they landed on it together.
Loki looked down at his hands as they rested on the now completely solid Dagon Sphere. The asphyxiated face of Warren was frozen on the sphere’s surface. But that wasn’t what had Loki intrigued. The burns on his hands had vanished. In fact, he could tell just by shifting slightly that the burns all over his body had vanished. There was no physical trace at all of the battle he had waged against the witch.
He made a little smile. That’s because there was no battle. He was in control now.
|
|
|
|
Rave
Barbie Girl (Becca)
biscuit07
Filmtheory (Jim)
Malice (Jess)
MebbtheScribe (MichaelB)
Reset (Allie)
Shay (Marrisa)
somnambulist29 (Shea)
Stephanie Loss
Wendyness (Wendy)
Questions?Contact Us
|
|
All stories on this site have been archived with the authors' consent. Do not copy these stories for your own uses without the express consent of the author themselves. Buffy the Vampire Slayer TM and Angel TM are © UPN, WB, Fox and its related entities. All photos on the site are © UPN, Fox, Warner Bros, and/or their respective owners. No profits are being made by use of these images.
Powered with the assitance of eFiction.
|
|
|
